Plastic bathtub and shower surrounds are finding increasing acceptance and use as substitutes for tiled surrounds. In spite of the popularity of tiled surrounds, these surrounds present certain problems. First, the grout may become a breeding place for stain producing mildew. Once stained the grout is extremely difficult to clean since it is porous and the stain may permeate through the grout. Secondly, the grout may loosen and fall out of the spaces between the tiles. Once the grout is cracked moisture may seep in behind the tiles and loosen them from the supporting wall. In addition, tile is difficult to install in perfectly straight lines. Also, tile is relatively expensive and time consuming to install compared to other walls.
The currently available plastic surrounds are generally comprised of a plastic and may be made by a vacuum forming process. Some of these vacuum formed plastic surrounds include a cabinet for storage of various bathroom items such as shampoo, combs, and the like. Most of these cabinets have sliding doors.
Sliding doors are normally mounted in guide channels in the cabinet. Normally a top guide channel is provided in the top wall of the cabinet for the tops of the sliding doors, and a bottom guide channel is provided in the bottom wall of the cabinet for the bottoms of the sliding doors. Due to the extreme difficulty of forming integral guide channels in the interior surfaces of the cabinet walls using current vacuum forming techniques and equipment, vacuum formed plastic surrounds containing an integral vacuum formed cabinet heretofore have had guide channels provided by mounting guide channel units which are separate and distinct from the cabinet to the interiors of the top and bottom cabinet walls. These separate guide channel units are typically adhered to the interior top and bottom surfaces of the cabinet by means of a suitable adhesive. This is a time consuming procedure and entails extra costs associated with the material cost of these separate guide channel units and the additional labor cost incurred in their installation.
The present invention remedies these problems by providing a vacuum formed surround panel which includes channels formed in at least the inner top and bottom surfaces of the cabinet adjacent the open side thereof.